Precrime Software: It's Real

Remember the 2002 Steven Spielberg sci-fi film The Minority Report with Tom Cruise? Remember the software they were using to determine who was the person who had yet to commit a crime, but was destined to do so? Well that software is very much a reality.

No we're not talking about software tied to three pre cogs who can see into the future, but we are talking about the ability to do very fast investigating.

Los Angeles tech firm Oblong Industries built just such a system, which uses wands or arm and hand gestures to sift through large volumes of data. Kwin Kramer, Oblong’s chief executive, told AFP they have the system up and working -- and for sale.

“We have demo versions of this kind of software which show exactly the Minority Report user experience, allowing you to move back and forth in time, or to zoom in to look at details,” Kramer said.

“You can have a lot of data but it's hard to make use of that,” Kramer told AFP. “It can be on different machines and hard to access. This allows multiple people to look at that.''

The software essentially creates a multi-screen tabletop, on which can be scattered videos, documents, notes and so on. Special wands or hand gestures allow the user to sift through the files, drawing connections between related items and zooming into others.

While the software should be able to help in many cases, I'm sure, it is never the software that is the problem, it is the men that use it and in the hands of people in the current administration of our country and some local police departments around the country this has the potential for some serious abuse.

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